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130. Opposite Shwegoo is a sacred island of the same name liter- 

 ally covered with pagodas and Bud- 

 isiand of Shwegoo entrance to (ihistic buildings. It sub-divides the 



second defile. . i i ±i n L ,1 



river; and shortly alter the streams 

 unite at the northern apex of the island ; here the second defile is 

 entered. There is something profoundly grand about this cutting 

 of nature, something irresistibly impressive, that wraps the mind in 

 wonderment at the great changes worked by the action, re-action, 

 and combination of the physical forces. Neither is the scenery 

 less striking or romantic, the river here changes the character by 

 which it has hitherto been marked, aud becomes more confined 

 and tortuous in its course ; indeed, between the entrance and exit, 

 the compass might have been boxed. In its rapid but undisturbed 

 flow, it acts as nature's mirror, reflecting her many charms in their 

 most faithful colours. Each bend, like the turn in the kaleidoscope, 

 reveals fresh beauties, until after two hours and twenty minutes' 

 steaming through an amphitheatre of hills, either mantled with a 

 luxuriant growth of vegetation reaching to the water's edge, and 

 concealing beneath their shade a few fishermen's huts, or present- 

 ing huge masses of displaced rock, resting one upon another in 

 all possible positions, that great geological changes could alone pro- 

 duce; we find, at a moment least expected, the gorge is at an end. 

 This abrupt termination, coupled with the geological formation of 

 these hills, which in general terms may be described as represent- 

 ing carbonate of liine, varying in colour, according to length of expo- 

 sure, from greyish black to a reddish tint, veined with calespar, 

 with serpentine cropping up in odd places, and all resting on a sub- 

 stratum of bluish clay, sufficiently accounts for the present course 

 of the river. We all know that the action of water on rocks may 

 take place either by actual solution or decomposition, or by loosen- 

 ing the cohesive force of the particles, and allowing them to dis- 

 integrate, or both, or principally by acting mechanically upon 

 them, removing portions to a distance, rubbing and rolling 

 them one against another. The mechanical action may be the 

 result of various causes, which need not be explained here. Among 

 the many examples of the eroding power of running water, I would 

 draw attention to Sir C. Lyell's account of the excavations by the 

 Simeto of Sicily, whereby in about two centuries, a passage was 

 opened through a Java current measuring from fifty to several 

 hundred feet wide, and in some parts from forty to fifty feet deep. 

 Lava is a compact homogeneous mass of hard blue rock, and in no 

 part porous or scoriaceous. How much more rapid, then, must 

 have been the action of the water in the present instances ?* 



* Professor Austen on Geology. 



